Gigging without an amp - what are you using?

Haych

A question for all you guys and gals who gig without an amp:

What are you using and would you recommend it? 

How do you run your effects?  Do you still use a pedal-board or do you have an all in one solution with some kind of dedicated foot controller?

How does it compare with using a real amp, for you as a guitarist and for the sound engineer and audience?

I am considering building a second ‘rig’ which will do away with amps and just plug straight into the PA.  Unfortunately for me, in one way or another this will force me to cross paths with technology. 

I’m not a technophobe but when it comes to guitar gear I prefer the immediacy of a real amp/pedals etc., and have never liked scrolling through menus and patches so I’m worried that I might be about to embark on an expensive and futile adventure into the murky world of modelling preamps and effects processors.

So I ask in the interests of finding out what works and what doesn’t work for other guitarists.  If you have a good experience with a particular piece of kit I’d love to learn about it.  Similarly, if you’ve tried a piece of equipment that was pants I’d like to hear about the experience.

At the moment I’m torn between going for an all in one box (Line 6 Pod HD Pro X/Helix etc) or building something from a tube preamp, fx processor and speaker emulator. 

The former might work well but it limits me to one solution and if I get the wrong one for me then it’s back to the drawing board.

Alternatively, building something from best of breed components might make things a bit simpler (at least in my mind that’s how I see it) and offer a bit more flexibility in terms of swapping out bits of gear that do and don’t work for my needs. 

I also imagine there’s quite a bit of kit floating around on the used market too which might help keep costs down.

Thanks in advance.

John_A

Done it a few ways, an AMT SS-11A with a bunch of pedals and a Pangea speaker emulation, nice and simple and sounded fantastic, I now have a Helix which sounds just as good and is a lot more flexible and I still have the options of adding pedals if I want.  There's not 'best' way, they both felt good as well as sounding good, and there's no reason to get bogged down in programming if you don't want to with either approach.

welshboyo

Here we go again.....

Went down the trad pedalboard route with an amp sim pedal at the end, worked OK but...you know whats coming...

Helix for me, using the same box for both duties - 4CM and direct FOH, actually I don't mic up anymore, I just use the signal from my real preamp (Bogner Shiva) to feed an IR of the actual cab I use (Bogner OS212) - the onstage is more for my own/band monitoring (even though we are IEM) and is dare I say it a visual thing too - I get enough trouble convincing the unsuspecting punter that I am actually playing not miming with a wireless system never mind no "amp" behind me LOL - yes, it happens a lot...

Helix simplifies the whole modelling thing down to a nice to use UI - simplify doesn't mean lower quality though, far from it, in fact it replaced my Fractal..

Other cheaper options out there too, its all about what you want, what you can afford and what ticks your boxes.

imalrightjack

@welshboyo So you use the Helix with a normal amp? How does the IR stuff work there? I was toying with getting one but wasn't sure it was worth it 'just for FX' if I continued using an amp. 

welshboyo

@imalrightjack yes, I use Helix with normal amp (4CM - so drives etc up front, Delays, Reverbs in amp FX loop) and it handles channel swiching and the switching in/out of a few external pedals (mainly a Bogner Red for massive gain stuff)

The way I have this set is that the FX return to the real amp is split 2 ways - one to the real amp and then the other signal to an Ownhammer IR which ends up at one of the Helix XLR's which gets plugged into the PA - this way, regardless of how I have the master on the amp set, the signal to FOH is always the same (set by the level of the IR) - it does introduce a risk of running the real master so high that you would drown everyone out with backline volume (which has happened ahem..!!)

The IR portion is there purely to feed the FOH signal, its redundant in the 4CM signal path.

What I can do then for the smaller gigs with no backline (or gigs in City Centres mainly where the carry in is a pain in the arse!!) is have another set of duplicate presets in a different User Folder where the real amp is substituted with the Helix model of the Shiva (called Mahadeva or something) which gives me the exact same noises as the real amp (and it is hard to tell the difference)

So my tone and volume is a constant every night regardless of what set-up is being used.

Its almost boring now setting up - plug in, turn on, select patch - GO

imalrightjack

@welshboyo You're pushing me closer to buying one! How does the IR work? Is that possible loaded in the Helix or am I missing something?

welshboyo

@imalrightjack the IR is essentially a .wav file that Ownhammer (or whoever) have created which is a recording of the way a cabinet/mic reacts to sounds.

There are onboard cab sims within Helix which a lot of people swear by - I just found the OH stuff to instantly transform the Helix's modelled sounds into a different league - with no tweaking or EQ or parallel cabs - thats just me, others found the onboard stuff to be easier..

IR = Cab Sim.

No IR needed in 4CM with real amp as the real cab/response etc is coming from the real amp

crunchman

I've used my Kemper live a few times with the built in effects.  While the built in effects are good the reverbs especially are not as good as my Big Sky so I am toying with the idea of trying the Kemper with my conventional pedal board.  The Kemper also takes drive pedals in front very well.

Even if you do use the Kemper with the built in effects you can use it like a more conventional amp.  You can turn the effects on and off using a foot controller while keeping the same basic amp sound like you would with pedals.  The nice thing is that you can then change to a different rig and have a different selection of pedals.  You could even have two rigs stored with the same amp.  One could have an overdrive pedal and a dotted 8 digital delay.  The second one could a Muff model with an analogue style delay.  You can then switch those effects on and off separately.

I don't know the other all-in-one boxes so I don't know whether it is all "patches" or whether you do ahve this kind of flexibility.

imalrightjack

Ah, sorry, I wasn't sure if you were putting it into an additional bit of hardware. Thanks for this. Very interested. 

Roland

It's the same story with an Axe FX. Amp modelling, effects, and cabinet simulation in one box, with an xlr cable to the PA. I've used Ownhammer IRs since Kevin started his business. As a band we use IEMs, but I also have a powered monitor to give acoustic coupling with the guitar (where else would I get my feedback?)

Haych

Of the Helix, is the rackmount flavour any more powerful than the floor mounted one?

John_A

Haych said:

Of the Helix, is the rackmount flavour any more powerful than the floor mounted one?

Nope - just a different box

ICBM

An acoustic guitar...
















In the past I've used, that I remember:

Zoom 9002. Pants. Its only good points were that it was small and ran on a (rechargeable) battery.

Boss SE-70 half-rack. Very good. I still have it, although I haven't used it for years. Pros - sounded great and was small and portable. Cons - tricky to edit quickly on the fly, and needed a separate foot controller.

Mesa Formula rack preamp and Peavey EQ215 graphic EQ. Brilliant - probably the best I've used. The graphic could set up a very good speaker response curve, much better than the Mesa's own. Pros - sounded like a real amp. Cons - in a 2U rack case, it was as big and heavy as one but couldn't drive a cabinet.

Mesa V-Twin pedal. Good. Pros - sounded good, fairly small. Cons - specialist power supply, annoying switching delay between modes, and when DI you lose the bypass (goes to mute).

Boss ME-50 - excellent. Pros - simple and intuitive multi-FX, and can run on batteries. Cons - only a couple of the overdrive sounds are any good, and the manual mode is very restricted so you can't pre-program different 'pedalboards' and then control them manually.

Boss GT-5 - haven't actually gigged with this yet, but it could be the best yet - it essentially has the sounds of the SE-70 with a modelling preamp as well, the manual mode done near enough right, and is still relatively small. The only bad thing I can think of is no battery operation, and that's very rarely important.

Cabicular

Another Helix user
I used to run through a valve poweramp for backline but I tried without for a gig and pretty much have left the cabs and valves at home ever since
cant say I notice the difference and neither do the punters
i have control over my own monitors though ...

digitalkettle

Roland said:

It's the same story with an Axe FX. Amp modelling, effects, and cabinet simulation in one box, with an xlr cable to the PA. I've used Ownhammer IRs since Kevin started his business. As a band we use IEMs, but I also have a powered monitor to give acoustic coupling with the guitar (where else would I get my feedback?)

Looking for an excuse for this http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/98870/freqout-release-date-in-uk ?

Haych

Helix seems to be a big hit from the look of things. At £1200+ for the floor mount version it's probably a bit beyond my means at the moment. 

Has as anyone gigged a real amp into a speaker emulator (Palmer PDI-03 etc) and fed that direct to FoH? I know some big bands do and seem to get great results but is it a practical for average Joe Bloggsamassa?

koss59

I'm flying to a gig in Brussels on Friday. 2000 people I think and I'm going to use my tech 21 Blonde. I'll report back to how successful it is!

Voxman

Vox Tonelab SE with named patches set up for each song, Exp 2 set as global volume pedal, Exp 1 set per patch (eg wah, or amp gain).  



Some patches set up for channel A/B switching within same patch, and some patches have the Control switch set to kick on/off a specific effect eg tube screamer without having to switch from preset to stompbox mode.  

Only external effect I use with my TLSE sometimes is a Quasitap, when using just a humbucker guitar, that gives me foot controlled single coil/tapped tones. 

For gigging, the TLSE goes straight through the desk/PA, and I have a monitor speaker or earpiece to hear myself.  Works superbly, and it gives great tonal consistency.  When going through the PA the Global EQ is set to 'Line'.  When I run it in front of an amp's clean channel (eg rehearsals) its set to 'Amp'. 

Its very organic and valve-like, and if you heard it live, you probably wouldn't even notice there wasn't an amp. Eg

John_A

A Zoom G3 isn't a bad budget option

Cabicular

Haych said:

Helix seems to be a big hit from the look of things. At £1200+ for the floor mount version it's probably a bit beyond my means at the moment. 

Has as anyone gigged a real amp into a speaker emulator (Palmer PDI-03 etc) and fed that direct to FoH? I know some big bands do and seem to get great results but is it a practical for average Joe Bloggsamassa?

I used to use hk audio redboxes rather than mics and they worked great

John_A

@Voxman that Tonelab sounds great, certainly shows a decent player doesn't need to drop £1200 on a box of tricks to get a good sound